Controversy surrounding a New York newspaper's decision to publish the names and addresses of local gun permit holders continued at fever pitch yesterday as a threatening envelope of white powder arrived in the newsroom's mail.

Sparking initial fears of an anthrax attack, the surprise package came after The Journal News had reportedly hired a team of armed guards to patrol the paper's headquarters in West Nyack.

One employee who handled the envelope was checked for contamination before the intimidating missive was deemed to be harmless.

Scare: An envelope of white powder is a latest threat targeted at New York paper The News Journal after it published a list of gun permit owners in the area (STOCK PHOTO)

While staffers continued their work yesterday evening, the threat was not taken lightly at the paper.

News Journal chief, Janet Hasson, told The New York Times that 'the safety of my staff is my top priority.'

The paper caused a stir on December 23 when it listed thousands of
pistol permit holders in suburban Westchester and Rockland counties just
north of New York City in an interactive map on its website.

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The Rockland County Times reported on Tuesday that Journal News editor Caryn A. McBride hired gun-toting security guards to patrol the paper's offices amid a flurry of angry emails and phone calls in the following days.

The paper hired the increased security from RGA Investigations & Security, a firm based in New City that provides services like protection and security guard certification, according to the Times.

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The news came just days after the Journal News announced plans to publish an expanded list of even more permit-holding locals.

On the list: As well as Journal News the website Gawker published a 446-page list of licensed gun owners in New York City

Along with an article entitled 'The
gun owner next door: What you don't know about the weapons in your
neighborhood,' theJournal News mapwas compiled in response to the December 14
shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut,
editors of the Gannett Corp.-owned newspaper said.

The next batch of names will be
permit holders in suburban Putnam County, New York, where the county
clerk told the newspaper it is still compiling information.

Some 44,000 people are licensed to
own pistols in the three counties, the newspaper said. Owners of rifles
and shotguns do not need permits, the newspaper said.

The publication prompted outrage, particularly on social media sites, among gun owners.

'Do you fools realize that you also
made a map for criminals to use to find homes to rob that have no guns
in them to protect themselves?' Rob Seubert of Silver Spring, Maryland,
posted on the newspaper's web site. 'What a bunch of liberal boobs you
all are.'

Republican state Senator Greg Ball of
Patterson, New York, said he planned to introduce legislation to keep
permit information private except to prosecutors and police.

Naming names: The paper caused a stir on December 23 when it listed thousands of pistol permit holders in suburban Westchester and Rockland counties just north of New York City in an interactive map on its website

A similar bill that he introduced earlier as an Assemblyman failed in the state Assembly.

'The asinine editors at the Journal
News have once again gone out of their way to place a virtual scarlet
letter on law abiding firearm owners throughout the region,' Ball wrote
on his Senate web site.

The newspaper's editor and vice
president of news, CynDee Royle, earlier in the week defended the
decision to list the permit holders.

'We knew publication of the database
would be controversial, but we felt sharing as much information as we
could about gun ownership in our area was important in the aftermath of
the Newtown shootings,' she said.

Some critics retaliated by posting reporters' and editors' addresses and other personal information online.

Howard Good, a journalism professor
at the State University of New York at New Paltz, called the critics'
response childish and petulant.

Calling for change: The paper said that they produced the map because in the wake of the Newtown shooting many people wanted to know who had legal guns in their neighborhood, and there were protests across the country (pictured)

'It doesn't move the issue of gun
control to the level of intelligent public discussion,' he said. 'Instead, it transforms what should be a rational public debate on a
contentious issue into ugly gutter fighting.'

Good said the information about permit holders was public and, if presented in context, served a legitimate interest.

But media critic Al Tompkins of the
Florida-based Poynter Institute wrote online this week that the
newspaper's reporting had not gone far enough to justify the permit
holders' loss of privacy.

'If journalists could show flaws in
the gun permitting system, that would be newsworthy,' he said. 'Or, for
example, if gun owners were exempted from permits because of political
connections, then journalists could better justify the privacy
invasion.'

Tompkins said he feared the dispute might prompt lawmakers to play to privacy fears.

'The net effect of the abuse of public
records from all sides may well be a public distaste for opening
records, which would be the biggest mistake of all,' he said.